Continuing our tour of some of the worst climate monitoring stations in California, we come to San Jose. In previous posts we’ve seen stations put next to parking lots. In this case we have not only that, but also a station next to a major city intersection. It never ceases to amaze me when I find another station that flagrantly violates NOAA’s own published siting standards.
This station #04-7821 has been in operation since 1874. It is painful to see what was likely once a pristine site so thoroughly polluted by thoughtless placement.
The picture below is provided by the National Weather Service Office, San Francisco/Monterey. Click on it to see an interactive panoramic view, then you may have to click a second time to activate the Java panning applet. Note the somewhat comical post photographic placement of NOAA/NWS logos in this altered image. Note also the URL – none of this is my doing, purely NOAA.
Below is an aerial view, which you can also click for an interactive view:
The location, on Mission street near the Police Station, is quite busy with daily traffic. It seems this station is well saturated with UHI. To the credit of the NWS, they closed down this station in early October 2007 citing this in the MMS database:
RELOCATION TO SJC ASOS SITE DUE TO CLOSE PROXIMITY/CLIMATOLIGICAL COMPATABILITY. THIS SITE IS WNW 1 MI AND 16 FT LOWER. STATION ID CHANGES FROM SJOC1 TO SJC
Unfortunately, the airport ASOS location doesn’t appear to be much better, as the ASOS temperature sensor there is in the middle of the runway complex, surrounded by an asphalt access road/pad and just a few feet from the a/c exhaust of the ILS instrumentation building:
Click the photo for a larger interactive view.
It seems like a far less than ideal place to measure temperature for climate tracking, but a great place to report aviation weather; a proverbial jump from the fire to the frying pan in terms of UHI.
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